Chapter Two: Mistakes
Nothing much had changed since that morning. Frank noted the time on the clock and anxiously tapped his pencil on the desk, a smoking cigarette in his other hand. The whole day he had been waiting to go home, to see April; since he had entered work early, he had the uneasy feeling that the phone would ring, the dread that weighed him down would plummet, and leave a numb sensation in his stomach.
He didn't know how his mind got on the topic of abortion. Maybe it was because breakfast had been so unusual, though it shouldn't have been, for it was how marriages should be. April had picked up her glass of orange juice with a tremulous hand, and he could see her swallow the unshed tears from the night before when she had ran out of the house and into the woods.
Chasing after her was a fight-or-flight decision, almost an instinct. He was so used to running after her, pulling her away from the life they both wanted to live, but which he barred away from their reality. He always asked her what she wanted, but he never gave it to her without disappointment. The guilt built up, and once he had caught up to her in the mass of trees and she begged him to stop, he took a step back. Then another, and another, until he finally turned his feet mechanically and walked away from his brooding wife, who eventually appeared again out in the back yard, smoking against a tree.
The image of her through the window sent Frank in an unmanly flurry of tears. Did she not know how much he tried? Would she ever find a way past his flaws? Maybe their marriage was a mistake; maybe they weren't meant to be.
"Frank?"
Frank jerked his head up to see one of his colleagues staring curiously at him, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand.
"This is the third time I've told you to contact the company."
He apologized and nodded his head, picking up the receiver, ready to do his job. As the man walked away, he slammed it down on the desk. He didn't realize he was shaking.
He should have thrown away the disgusting thing away when he had the chance.
…
Later that day, Frank got out of work early, complaining that his wife wasn't feeling well. He had even feigned the conversation on the phone, mentally congratulating himself when his colleagues and partners sent him sympathetic words and glances. Maureen—the, uh, secretary— smiled as though she was hurt, but Frank pretended not to notice.
As he pulled into the driveway, he noted that the only light on in the house was in the bedroom. Everything was oddly quiet, and at first that dread came boiling back up, but he pushed the bile back down his throat. Slamming the car door shut, he shifted the suitcase uncomfortably in his hands as he tried to keep a calm, nonchalant posture entering the practically barren house.
When the front door slammed behind him, it echoed throughout the idealistic home. Frank felt cold and strangely lost, like he had entered a stranger's place. Putting one foot in front of the other, his leather shoes made their usual stepping sound. The kitchen was clean, the living room was tidied up; but where was April?
His eyes roamed the room and fell upon the letter. Opening it up with nerve-tingling hands, the first thing he noticed was the shaky handwriting—his name signed at the top, with April's words flowing onto the paper.
"Do not blame yourself."
He remembered the bedroom light upstairs, and instantly his stomach knotted up. He wanted to vomit all over the clean floors April worked so diligently scrubbing every day. As quick as a whip he ran up the stairs, thanking God that his children had not been home to see the terrible choice their mother had made, and pushed open the bedroom door without a second thought.
April. Curled up on the bed in a fetal position, her eyes red and puffy from hours of lone silence except for her sobs; they caught his, her guilty blue irises poring into him. So badly he wanted to collapse to the ground and cry in relief, for she was alive but badly scarred by what her own mind had been thinking hours ago.
"Frank," she whimpered, her voice weak yet angelic. He'd forgotten how lovely she sounded when she spoke; he only remembered her screams. In a nervous habit, she looked away from his eyes and began biting her nails. He'd forgotten how she'd do that; he only remembered how her face deteriorated when she cried.
His gaze darted from his broken wife to the wide-open bathroom door, the kit dropped on the floor in a puddle of water. Horrified, he didn't move, nor did he speak.
April noticed what he was looking at and jumped out of the bed, rushing into his arms. "I'm sorry, Frank," she cried, her nails digging deeper into his ironed shirt. "I'm so sorry!"
He just held her there, unresponsive. His dumbfounded motives encouraged her to continue. "I swear I didn't do anything! I stopped myself before I could…" Sniffling, she shut her mouth and refused to say any more than she already had. However, she allowed herself to be warmed by his stiff embrace.
The next words that came out of his wife's frowning mouth made Frank snap back into reality: "I'm sorry."
Was she sorry? He couldn't be sure. He clearly remembered the ugly argument they had where he had accused her of almost "flushing their whole family down the toilet," as he had angrily put it; he had studied her reaction to his response as her mouth faltered and she struggled with her words.
"But…I love my children."
Yet, she had called their firstborn a mistake, the reason why they got married. They then, in lack of a better way to put it, planned the next one just so it couldn't be a blunder in their relationship twice in a row. After all, what would the infallible street of Revolutionary Road think of the Wheelers if they knew of their "slip-ups"?
The negative impressions of Jennifer and Michael in April's foolish mind made Frank want to shake her shoulders in another rage, but the fire that had been burning inside him for weeks burned out. Immediately he was calm, holding her in his arms and kissing the top of her head to soothe her as he hoped she had cried for the last time that day.
"It's all right," he replied calmly, tenderly pushing her away just so he could see the apologetic glint in her eyes.
For a few seconds they did nothing but stare as though they had never seen each other before. April studied his eyes, the bluest color she'd ever seen in her entire life, and his babyish facial features; Frank noticed her bow-shaped lips and the slight bump on her swelling stomach, carrying a child—his child.
Why hadn't he made the connection before?
He scoffed, the corner of his mouth turning up at the thought. Life shouldn't be a game, he realized, talking about their children like they weren't human beings with souls, or having affairs galore just to hurt the other or escape an awaiting brawl at home. Their world was completely fake, and he was the one who stopped them from escaping—for a job he, in fact, loathed.
April raised an eyebrow at his eccentric response, licking her dry lips. "Wha—" she began, but was immediately interrupted by her husband, who took her face in his hands and put a smooth thumb over her lips.
"Shh," he whispered, moving his hands over her eyes. "Let me think."
And then there it was, making his heart soar. To his delight, she laughed, a pure, genuine giggle. Maybe it was because how silly he was being or how unlikely it was of him to play around with her like that, but whatever the case, she let him contemplate.
When he finally removed his blocking hands from her face, he was met with a mocking, intimidating gaze, her arms crossed at her chest and forehead wrinkled up. It was as though the horrible moment before had dissipated. "What were you think about?" she asked him, courageously undoing his tie and wrapping it in her hand, setting it aside, her eyes avoiding the lighted bathroom.
The words came out of his mouth before he could fully think them over. "We're moving to Paris!" he exclaimed, the widest smile appearing on his features in the past eight weeks.
April's giddy face dropped. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out but a stutter; was he being serious? All of a sudden, she was furious at him. "I-is this some kind of a joke?" she scoffed, taking a couple steps back. "Are you really going to bring that up again?"
Heart plummeting, Frank knew what was coming before it even happened: another fight. They always started off in some offensive way, a situation he unfortunately knew too well. Stepping closer to her, he said, "Let me explain," but she madly moved back some more.
"No, no!" she yelled when he attempted to hold her clammy palm, but she put her hands up in innocence. "Don't touch me!" She sighed, disliking the words that spilled out of her mouth; she pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. "Just let me think this time," she muttered more calmly.
But what rolled off her tongue after a moment of utter silence was not what Frank expected. "How about," April suggested thoughtfully, "we be honest with each other before we make any more commitments?"
Frank gulped, hard. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," she sighed, suddenly seeming uncomfortable, "whatever you've kept out of our relationship, you spill it now."
When he didn't respond, she spoke up. "Here, I'll go first." The corner of his lips twitched as April rolled up her sleeves and glanced out the window. "Since you were so honest with me about your affair in the city, I'll have to be honest with you."
She explained how she had unconsciously let Shep, their married neighbor, seduce her. "I was angry and upset," she had spoken rapidly, tears pouring out of her eyes. "It was just me and him at that bar after you and Milly left, and before I knew it I invited him to dance and I couldn't stop thinking about Paris and the baby and—and…" She shrugged helplessly, her face distorted from sobbing. "We were in the car ready to drive home, when I—I let him. H-he said he'd been in love with me for such a long time…" She swallowed the disgusting bile rising in her throat, sickened by what she had done. "Looking back on it now," she laughed boldly, "he's always been quite revolting."
Her heart pounding, she finally dared herself to look up in her husband's eyes. This is it, she thought, her palms sweating. Oh God, he's probably thinking of my reaction when he told me about his secretary.
Frank held a blank expression on his face. Millions of thoughts were roiling through his mind like a storm at sea, the waves splashing and swirling. The story he had just been told didn't process well in his mind, but for him, there was only one thing he could really be true with himself about: She had been honest. And that was all that should matter to him.
His response shocked April. "Quite," he managed to make out, his numb lips forming a boyish grin as his wife's torn face pulled itself back together again—and they started laughing, something they hadn't done together in what seemed like years, maybe all the way back to medieval times.
Pulling her into a well-needed hug, he kissed her tenderly on the lips—surprising themselves once again for their boldness that night—and wrapped his arms around her waist while closing his eyes, burrowing his face into her short blonde hair and caressing her ear.
They stayed like that, the inseparable couple they had always been but never acknowledged, until Frank reluctantly pulled away and pushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear. "Get some rest," he said. "It's been a long day." Meanwhile, he made the short journey to the bathroom, ready to mop up the horrible confessions that had been revealed that day—namely April's attempt at abortion and affair with the neighbor, which he still couldn't and didn't want to picture.
As April got into her nightgown and shimmied into bed, she relaxed her head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling, her arms instinctively wrapping around her slight bump of a belly. Lost in thought, she could barely make out Frank calling Milly to watch their kids for another night; when questioned about April's strange behavior earlier that day, Frank said that that was the reason why he wanted Jennifer and Michael to stay at her home—as much as he hated Shep at that moment.
A few moments later he crawled into bed next to April, flicking off the lamp and sinking under the covers.
April's head was pounding. As moments passed, so did her thoughts—and one couldn't leave into sleep just yet.
"Frank?" she whispered in the dark, but it didn't feel like her lips had moved.
"Hm?"
"Were you being serious when you said we're moving to Paris?"
Frank sighed deeply before replying. "We'll talk about it this time," he said. "Really, truly talk about it."
Her hand moved from her belly and wound its way to Frank's, her fingers entwining in his. "And Frank?"
He could feel his heart beating under his chest. "Yeah?"
"I love you so much."
Many thoughts whipped through Frank's head at that moment. One was this: So they had problems. But he was willing to let the past go and think only of their present: their home, their family, and their future. Have the baby in Paris? he told himself. Seems like a good idea to me.
It wasn't until then that Frank realized that their marriage had been crumbling apart for the past ten years. From that day forward, he vowed to never let it fall apart again.
Impulsively, his hand closed over hers. "I love you too."